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Thursday, August 04, 2011

We have a few hard numbers now on the Wisconsin recall races and, while the news is good, it's not anything we didn't already know. Jmartin4s at DailyKos got hold of some polling from Insider Michigan Politics which finds that Democrats are clear leaders in three races that they're widely expected to win. What's telling here is just how large those leads are:

Two strong wins and one landslide. One Republican incumbent who was expected to win finds herself in a much tighter race than anyone had expected. Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling recently told constituents she couldn't guarantee she'd be reelected. Asked at a Q & A if she was sure she'd win, Darling answered, "I'm not sure. It's going to be about turnout."

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According to Andrew Kroll at Mother Jones, she's gone from a candidate who was "a lock to win her recall mere months ago" to a very slim lead and, in one poll at least, a statistical tie.

...According to polling data, Darling has some cause to worry: One poll released in mid-July by the Democratic Party showed Pasch ahead of Darling by 1 percentage point, while a Public Policy Polling survey commissioned by the liberal Daily Kos put Darling up by 5 points. Even then, it's a sign of the shifting political headwinds in Wisconsin that the Republican state senator considered by Democrats to be the least likely to lose her recall election is now conceding that she may be unseated.

And she's right. The "it's all about turnout" cliche always struck me as a little obvious -- if no one shows up to vote for you then, yeah, you're not going to win. That's how this election stuff works. But it's shorthand for "we need 'get out the vote' efforts." And it's there that the right is getting a little antsy. The rightwing Human Events spells out the worry behind that antsiness.

Privately, more than a few Republican consultants are growing nervous and sensing that organized labor’s years-longer skills at turning out voters in special elections will win the day for them. The nature of the districts targeted by Democrats is also working to their advantage because, as [GOP consultant] Scott Becher told Human Events, "Democrats cherry-picked the districts they were going after." In the Oshkosh district, for example, Republican Sen. Randy Hopper was last elected by a slim 189 votes over Democrat Jessica King and now faces a rematch with Oshkosh Deputy Mayor Kane. There are two prisons and a university in the district. In the 2nd District (Green Bay), Republican Sen. Rob Cowles faces a well-known opponent in former Brown County Executive Nancy Nussbaum, who is taking a page from national Democrats and denouncing Republican policy, in which (she charges), "I see the wealthiest people are being benefited. It just is not fair."

The part about "cherry-picking" is BS, of course. Recall petitions were circulated in every district where a senator was eligible -- in the farthest right (and left, for that matter) districts, those petitions failed to get the required number of signatures. Given the nature of the process, it only stands to reason that the more competitive the district, the more likely the success of the petition. You'll notice that my own senator, Democrat Fred Risser, isn't being recalled. It's not for lack of trying, but for lack of signatures. And even if they'd found enough signatures to get the ball rolling, Risser is beloved here -- the challenger would be slaughtered. The GOP didn't "cherry-pick" other dems and leave Risser alone. There was just no chance of anything ever getting off the ground here.

But here again we have the turnout worry. Specifically, that labor has the advantage. People are banging phones and knocking on doors and sitting in the back rooms of labor halls stuffing envelopes -- all volunteers and all working for free. Republicans, with their complete certainty that the private sector can do no wrong, have limited themselves mostly to hiring firms to make robo-calls and send mailers. Any volunteers come from the Tea Party which, let's face it, is looking a lot like a flash in the pan at the moment. They can't turn out the free workers that unions can.

None of this is to say that Democrats will ultimately be successful in turning over control of the state senate. They need a net gain of three seats. Those three winners at the top of the post include an incumbent. But right now, from everything I'm seeing, it's pretty much a 50/50.